Sex, Science and Morality in China

Front Cover
Routledge, Jul 30, 2014 - Political Science - 208 pages

After decades of near silence on the matter, sex is being talked about in China. But what is being said? Who is allowed to speak? And whose purposes are being served?

This ground-breaking book takes a critical look at how sex in China is thought and talked about. Drawing on the work of the country’s foremost sex experts, and years of research in the field, it gives an overview of the sexual landscape in China today.

Including new material on transsexuals, fetishism, sex aids and pornography, the book shows that the dominant ways of thinking about sex are neither innocent nor inconsequential, and that amid catalogues of prescriptions linking self-management to the collective good, people are making decisions about how to live their sexual lives.

The most lively and accessible critique of sexual discourse, this book will be essential reading for scholars in Chinese studies, cultural studies and sexuality and gender studies.

 

Contents

Introduction
1
1 The sexed body and naturalized gender difference
8
2 The sexual body and its normal function
24
3 Sexual dysfunction and treatments in sex shops and sex clinics
40
4 Controlling sex outside marriage eugenics and quality children
56
5 Marriage manuals and instructions for harmonious sex
77
homosexuality pornography and fetishism
90
7 The sale and purchase of sex
111
Conclusion
128
Character list
131
Notes
140
Bibliography
156
Index
189
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About the author (2014)

Joanna McMillan is a freelance writer specialising in contemporary Chinese social issues. She gained her PhD from the University of Leeds and held a research fellowship at SOAS, University of London.

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